Wednesday, September 2, 2009

A look at Audacity of Hope - Chapter Two

Chapter two of Audacity of Hope is entitled "Values". The point of the chapter is that while politicians and people involved in politics may disagree with each other, we should respect each other's motives. In fact then Senator Obama says he does not consider George Bush a bad man. There is very little talk of values in this chapter. Nothing that shows you what Barack Obama really values deep down. The only value this chapter may reveal, since the point is really the same as chapter one, is that he values a civil political playing field and hates the way we tend to demonize the other side.

At one point he gave a speech in which he said there was too much sex on TV. Although he never said he wanted to regulate it, he did scold the networks and suggest they sensor themselves. He was criticized severely by people on the left. He feels a leader should be able to be against something and still not be for government intervention. For example he believes conservative leaders should rail against corporate executive pay, even though he knows they would be against the government getting involved in stopping it.

Perhaps now that he is the Dad in chief he can show leadership and create a national discussion about what the slowly eroding values on TV are doing to the generations coming up.

So chapter two is about seeing things through the other persons point of view, but not about values at all.